MRI Portable X-band Doppler radar

MRI Portable X-band Doppler radar

Many important meteorological processes occur at a scale of a few kilometers or less and it is difficult to observe them with conventional stationary meteorological radars. The most critical limitation is that the target meteorological events rarely occur in the immediate proximity of traditional stationary radars. This limits the ability to resolve fine-scale structures due to beam spreading, topographical obstructions, and the Earth’s curvature. Fine-scale observations of these phenomena are required to better understand their formation and maintenance mechanisms.

A portable X-band Doppler radar (X-POD: X-band, POrtable Doppler radar) was introduced to Meteorological Research Institute (MRI) 2006. An important aspect of X-POD is its portability (i.e., small-size and low power consumption). This allows X-POD to approach the target weather events and observe their fine-scale structure continuously as long as the phenomena remain within several kilometers of X-POD.

It is expected that X-POD will increase opportunities to observe more cases than stationary radars would. We plan on employing X-POD to collect data in wide variety of mesoscale phenomena such as typhoon landfall, various convective disturbances, orographic snow clouds, and boundary layer circulations.